


Win a Date with Ginny Baker

by streetlightsky



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-13
Updated: 2017-02-13
Packaged: 2018-09-23 23:17:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9686591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/streetlightsky/pseuds/streetlightsky
Summary: For the record, Ginny considered this one of Amelia’s worse ideas ever. Her appearance on Kimmel she had tolerated when it gave her a platform to be herself. Some photo shoots she had disagreed with but done with her trademark plastic smile. But this—auctioning herself off for charity—was a whole other story.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monkshoodr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkshoodr/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day to everyone, especially all you Pitch Secret Admirers. And to Rachel who I wrote this for. Hope you enjoy!

For the record, Ginny considered this one of Amelia’s worse ideas ever. Her appearance on Kimmel she had tolerated when it gave her a platform to be herself. Some photo shoots she had disagreed with but done with her trademark plastic smile. But this—auctioning herself off for charity—was a whole other story.

All her arguments had fallen on deaf ears. For a role that sounded like a woman selling herself for a night, neither her agent nor the hosts of the event seemed to mind. Ginny couldn’t play the sexist card either because both male and female athletes were participating. The biggest hammer of all, though, was that this scheme was all for a good cause, a charity of her choice.

For a two-hundred-fifty-dollar donation, almost anyone that passed the age limit and background check could enter the drawing and win a date night with some prominent athlete to the upcoming ESPN charity gala. And not only that, but people could put their name in multiple times for matching contributions if they so chose.

How Amelia—and Evelyn for that matter who had gone from her best girl friend to biggest betrayer—thought that any of this was okay was beyond Ginny’s comprehension.

She had begrudgingly agreed to join the charade much to everyone else’s delight. But that was last month where she could make a split second decision and shelve the topic for later. This was now—a couple of weeks before she would report for spring training in Peoria.

Her focus should be on her game, on contributing to the team so they could actually make it to the postseason instead of watching all the glory of a World Series title go a division rival. The last thing Ginny needed were distractions to sidetrack her from her goals.

Yet here she was standing in front of a bunch of cameras and reporters and official ESPN and charity auction people waiting for her to pull a name out a fish bowl, brimming with paper slips, like a scene out of the goddamn _Hunger Games_.

Missy Franklin had just selected her date, and before that, Tyler Seguin had. All eyes were on her now as Ginny dipped her hand into the sea of concealed names. Cameras clicking, recorders thrust forward, the room hummed with eagerness for the most ridiculous reasons. Out of the corner of her eye, Ginny saw Amelia give her a discreet nod.

She gave the names one final swirl before plucking a single piece of paper from the masses.

This was it. The winner’s fate was sealed between her fingertips. Whoever’s name she had selected would be her charity date for the gala—an entire night spent with some stranger as if Ginny didn’t already have a hard enough time socializing in public.

Swallowing, she ripped open the seal and unfolded the card to read the name, and—

Horrified, Ginny looked up to see the camera flashes and anticipation on everyone’s face as they waited for her to speak, to reveal the name of the person she was to take to the big event when she would rather be just about anywhere else on the entire planet.

“Ginny?” the hostess urged. “Would you like to announce the winner?”

She balked before clearing her throat and pressing her lips together. And after she remembered how her voice worked, Ginny uttered three syllables in a meek mumble of sheer disbelief.

“Mike Lawson.”

 

 

 

Once she was excused from a simple round of questions and photo op, Ginny stalked off backstage and found the first empty room with a lock on the door. She shut everyone, including her agent, out before fumbling in her pocket for her phone. Her fingers felt clumsy in the wake of her growing anger, yet they still scrolled through her contacts and smashed the call button with force a touchscreen would never feel.

Ginny hadn’t called him—or talked to or heard from or even seen him—since he announced his retirement last fall. Here, now, she was listening to each ring with increasing irritation toward a man who hadn’t even said goodbye.

“Look at what we got here,” he voice cut through suddenly. “Ginny Baker—”

“What the fuck, Lawson.”

“What?” he responded, his tone going from jovial to baffled in a heartbeat. “Is that any way to talk to your captain?”

Ginny seethed—her exasperation rising by the second. Seeing Amelia standing in the hallway with a disapproving expression on her face, she swiftly turned her back and faced the floor to ceiling windows in the abandoned conference room.

“Give me a goddamn heads up next time, would you? Before pulling a stunt like that, Jesus. In front of all those reporters who, thanks to you, are having a field day about me pulling your name out of the bowl. I swear to God, Lawson”—she huffed—“find someone else to prank because I’m tired of this shit. I mean, I don’t hear from you for months, and now my horrified face, immortalized by flash photography, is probably plastered all over the internet because you decided to—”

“Baker!” he barked. She inhaled sharply—her rant cut short and hanging in the balance. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Ginny clenched her free hand into a fist and jammed it into the side of her thigh. For a while there, she had almost forgotten how infuriating he could be. And she could ignore the way the continued silence between them had stretched on like the world’s most elastic band, but Mike Lawson would not play Ginny for a fool.

“The charity gala for ESPN,” she said as a matter of fact. “The auction date? It’s not even an auction. I don’t know why they call it that.”

“What about it, Baker?”

“I fucking pulled your name, Lawson! That’s what.”

“No, you didn’t.” He was being petulant now. Ridiculous.

“Yeah, Old Man, I fucking did,” she snapped. “I saw the goddamn list myself, and there was one Mike Lawson, former professional baseball player for the San Diego Padres on the sheet. It was even the right phone number and everything.”

For a few panicked minutes, Ginny had sworn it was some kind of mistake when she saw his name on the card. But after reviewing the information herself, there was no denying that her former captain and catcher had won himself a date with his sole female ex-teammate.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t put my name in—”

“How many more ways do I need to spell this out for you?” she hissed. The more he denied it, the more upset she got. Why couldn’t he just admit that he was messing with her again? “I, Ginny Baker, regretfully signed up for this charade and unfortunately picked you, Mike Lawson, out of more than a hundred names to be my date to this party next weekend.”

“Hold on, I’m getting another call.”

“It’s probably the—” Ginny began to retort until she was met with silence. Rolling her eyes, she considered just hanging up on him. Sure, she could yell at him some more, but no good would come out of it.

The whole world heard her announce Mike Lawson as her date to the gala. And as much as Ginny wanted to, there was no backing out of this—especially when she signed that airtight contract Amelia had arranged so things wouldn’t get out of hand. Well, too late.

Speaking of her agent, the blonde knocked and signaled for Ginny, who sighed but went over to open the door.

“They’re wrapping up,” Amelia said, jerking her head down the hall. “Is that him?”

“Did you know?”

“I swear, I did not know.” Ginny believed her. It had been more than a year since the little Lawson-Slater rendezvous that neither party—as well as Ginny—wanted to rehash or relive. They had all came out of that incident civil and levelheaded. It was best to keep it that way.

“He’s probably talking to them right now,” she said. “He said he didn’t enter. Said he had no idea what I was talking about.” And though Ginny once prided herself in being able to read him, now, she didn’t know what to think.

Maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he didn’t call these people up and put his name in the game for a charitable donation to the Boys & Girls Club of America. Maybe—

“Hey, you still there?” his voice rang through her phone again.

“Yeah, Lawson. I’m still here.”

“So, what time should I pick you up on Saturday?” he asked, his tone far too bright and chipper for someone who had no clue how he had gotten himself into this in the first place.

Goddammit.

 

 

 

The three days between selecting Lawson’s name and the actual event Ginny spent grilling various teammates over the phone as she tried to find the culprit of this stupid prank. Some guys she ruled out because they knew better than to mess with her. Others, though, would be thoroughly interrogated until the perpetrator was found.

Ginny texted Sonny who replied with a number of laughing and crying emojis she did not find amusing whatsoever. But he also told her that he had stopped getting involved with his teammates love lives since setting Lawson up with one of his wife’s friends and watching it go horribly wrong. She wasn’t sure how that story was supposed to convince her, but Ginny let him off the hook anyway and went back to the drawing board.

Salvamini’s response was on par with Sonny’s, though his alibi was a little more convincing. He had been on vacation with his family up until last week; the last thing on his mind while his wife was yet again pregnant was setting up the former batterymates.

Ginny continued to go down the list of potential suspects to no avail. Omar, Butch, Dusty, Moore, Javanes, and hell, even Hinkley, but none of them knew a thing.

Sighing, she sent a minimalist text to Livan last. _Charity date for ESPN is Lawson. Did u do this?_

She didn’t get a response until late that night—after she and Evelyn had gone shopping and the latter had somehow convinced her that the green garment she had bought with skimpy straps and a thigh high slit would be appropriate for the occasion. Once she hung the dress on the inside hook of her closet, Ginny checked the text on her phone.

 _Destino, mami_.

Ginny refrained from chucking her cell across the room.

 

 

 

She was running late. Straightening her hair had been a pain Ginny had forgotten about, though she kept her makeup simple because what the hell, it wasn’t like she was trying to impress anyone tonight. What did it matter anyway? Her date—and probably everyone else for that matter—had seen her in a sweaty uniform in ninety-degree heat during a game. They should be glad she was putting effort into this and even attending given the circumstances.

The knock on the door was Lawson, she knew. She had promised Amelia that she wouldn’t bolt, which somehow led to her agent giving her former catcher her hotel room number and car service for the night.

Ginny didn’t even glance at him when she swung the door open—instead focusing on clasping her choker together in the front before turning it around properly. Only when she was satisfied did she look up.

In the back of her mind where she shoved temporarily dismissed things, Ginny had remembered something about a clean-shaven Mike Lawson after his last press conference. Standing in front of it now was a different story—a direct glimpse to the neatest Ginny had ever personally seen his facial hair. Well, his stubble game was strong, but at least he didn’t look like a cousin from Duck Dynasty anymore.

It was different. He seemed… different. Almost like the poster she had once hung on her bedroom wall.

“You look really nice,” he said. Ginny snorted and rolled her eyes. And just like that, the real Mike Lawson was back.

“Give me a minute,” she told him, heading to the bathroom for one final lookover. She heard the snick of the door close and left him to his own devices in her room. Ginny had learned to live in hotels. If he was the snooping type, there was nothing she left lying around for him to find.

He had never been to any of her places before. Not the serviced apartment the Padres had set her up in when she had been called up. Not any of the hotel rooms she had stayed in on road trips across the league during the two seasons they played together. Not even the condo she had bought and then asked Blip and a couple of the guys for assistance moving furniture around for her.

Ginny didn’t remember what his excuse had been when she asked Lawson to help; she only remembered him not being there.

In the elevator, she stood three steps away from him and watched as the floor numbers ticked away down to the lobby. Ten. Nine. Eight…

“Is this going to be awkward?” he asked.

“Well, I already humiliated myself when I read your name in front of a bunch of cameras and reporters,” she retorted. “Don’t think it can get any worse than that.”

“I told you. I didn’t have anything to do with this.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Baker...” He sighed and rubbed a hand over that stubble she couldn’t quite stop stealing glances at through the mirrors.

The elevator pinged when they hit the first floor, and the shiny doors finally opened and gave her some relief.

“It’s all good,” she said in the end. That was what she told herself heading outside, sliding into the car, looking out the window during the ten-minute drive to the gala, and not giving her date any more of her attention than she believed he deserved.

“Ginny.” His voice was soft and tentative when he got out of the car and extended his open hand for her. She knew what he was actually offering. After all this time—two years as teammates, a night of almost in front of Boardner’s, and the absence of even a goodbye following his last game and subsequent retirement—Ginny knew exactly what he meant and intended.

She grabbed his hand to step out of the car as elegantly as possible in this dress, posed for the minimal amount of pictures that would appease the media and Amelia, and then headed off to meet Blip and Evelyn at the bar without her date in tow.

 

 

 

“You’re being ridiculous,” her best friend asserted after shoving Blip off in Lawson’s direction. “What did that man ever do to you?”

“Are you seriously asking me that right now?” Out of everyone, Evelyn knew the most about the off-field relationship—if it could even be called that—between her and her former captain. And, well, Ginny guessed Blip was up to date too since the Sanders pair really could not keep secrets from each other. Both of them were open books unlike someone else.

“Ginny, listen to me when I tell you that this is not a bad thing. Hell, you didn’t even want to sign up for it in the first place. Isn’t a set-up date with Mike better than trying to introduce people to a complete stranger?”

As much as she hated to admit that fact, of course it was true. At least with him, Ginny knew what she was getting and didn’t have to jump through hurdles and engage in meaningless conversations or answer the thousand of repetitive questions people inevitably had for her.

But it didn’t mean she had to be happy about it, him, chatting with his former centerfielder whilst looking at her the entire time. She turned away with a frown, and Evelyn elbowed her.

“Did you guys finally talk?”

Ginny sighed. “What’s the point? We were fine in complete silence, and if that’s what he wants, then whatever. We’ll do the small talk tonight, get the pictures in, and be done with it.” Ginny so wanted to be done with it. “He still insists that he had nothing to do with this. I asked almost everyone. I got this text from Livan? I don’t know if it was some kind of admission or if he’s just trying to—”

“Forget about Duarte!” Evelyn snapped. “Focus on Mike, would you?”

“Why, Evie?”

“Because,” the woman said, swiping two glasses of champagne off a waiter’s tray and pressing one into Ginny’s hand. “This dress you’re wearing deserves attention and the only person that’s going to give it to you tonight is the one standing next to my husband.”

Ginny glanced over and sucked in a breath.

Lawson was still staring at her.

 

 

 

Two glasses of bubbly in and Ginny eventually lost some of her inhibition. She would always be wary of parties in Los Angeles after the fiasco a year and a half back, but it was better now that she wasn’t feeling the pressure of being a rookie phenomenon. Not that she ever was such a thing.

She made her rounds—talking to all the people she should be talking to, smiling for the inescapable pictures, and not giving her date the cold shoulder. Amelia would be proud, Ginny thought. She didn’t need much of a push anymore—or a coach or a chaperone for that matter. And by the looks of it, her agent was enjoying the breather considering the smile on her face while she talked to the man by the bar.

Lawson stayed close to her now that she allowed him to. So comfortably close that Ginny hadn’t even notice when their past and present relationship blurred together. What she was aware of were the occasional shoulder bumps he gave her during dinner, the seamless manner he avoided the awkward conversation about the way this match had come to fruition, and how he shifted the spotlight off of her to—what else—talk about himself.

Into the night, the participating athletes and their selected dates sat around a table to trade stories just for fun. Ginny was engrossed in Missy’s experiences at the Olympics because that girl was the true definition of a woman dominating in her sport. The swimmer had six Olympic medals and held world records. Ginny was the fifth starter on a more-often-than-not losing baseball team.

Lawson gave them plenty of anecdotes given his long career in the majors. Yet the most fascinating thing about him right then was the way he casually slung his arm around the back of her chair.

Ginny sipped on her third drink, laughed at Seguin’s Stanley Cup celebration tales, and leaned back into that weight—so familiar from the times she had fallen asleep leaning against it on the bus or plane to wherever.

After they all said their goodbyes, he turned to her, set aside her half-finished flute of champagne, and looked at her the way he had been doing all night. “I think it’s time I take you home.”

“Can we go to the beach?” Ginny blurted out in response. She didn’t know why she said that, but it was the first thing on her mind after having ridden past the long stretch of sand and ocean on their way here.

She expected him to say no—to laugh at her and launch into speech mode or Lawson Story Time all the while cajoling her out of what he thought was a dumb idea for someone who was tipsy and not thinking straight.

But he smiled. He smiled in that way that made his eyes bright and warm and made Ginny bright and warm at the same time.

“Okay,” he said, taking her hand in his and steadying her on her feet. “Let’s go.”

 

 

 

The sand was cool under her feet. The strip—usually littered with umbrellas, beach bums, and tanned skin—was barren save for a group around a bonfire down the far end. Her heels dangled between her fingers while her other arm wrapped around her midsection as she watched the waves advance and recede against the shoreline.

Ginny had only ever been to the beach twice. The first time with Cara and friend which she did not remember much of that fateful night of her Nike endorsement party. And now again, back in Los Angeles in the wake of another major event but with vastly different company.

Lawson stood on the edge of the pavement with his shoes on. He had shed his coat and tie and left them in the car but seemed to have no interest in joining her closer to the water. Ginny looked at him with the utmost scrutiny now that there was some physical distance between them and no prying eyes.

He was small from her position—his hands jammed in both pant pockets, the contrast of his white shirt against the dark night, his body language a mystery to her. He had been the guy that caught her screwball for her first two years playing in the majors. He had been the captain of the Padres, a team she had given her life to since she had been eighteen years old.

He had also been the guy she almost kissed on the streets of San Diego when he had been prepared to leave. And tonight, he had been her date—her nearly perfect date.

She headed over to face him for the first time in what felt like forever—his black dress shoes remaining on the concrete while her toes dug into the sand.

“Come on,” she said. He shook his head. “It’s not quicksand, Old Man. Your knees will survive.”

She watched him watch her. “I think it’s time I take you home,” he iterated to her dismay. Ginny didn’t want to; she didn’t want to admit that she didn’t want to.

Though, she suspected he already knew that.

“It was Evelyn,” she sighed. He blinked. “She told me in the bathroom. Donated a thousand dollars in your name so you would be in the drawing four times. All so this”—she gestured between them—“might happen if I picked you.”

“You did.”

“You’re really shitty to talk to sometimes, you know that?” she grumbled. “Then again, that’s our specialty right now. Not talking.”

“Ginny.”

“What.”

She hated that he made her feel this way, that she could be infuriated and practically in love with him at the same time. And Ginny hated that she was terrified because all her relationships seemed to end badly. Trevor. Noah. And now Mike, seemingly all over again.

She had waited. She had thought now that they were no longer teammates, now that he was retired, they would at least talk. Instead, he had shut her out.

“You didn’t give me anything,” she said. “You just left. Didn’t say goodbye. Didn’t call me later or answer any of my messages. You didn’t give me anything, Mike—”

He grabbed her by the neck. He leaned all the way in as his lips descended on hers. She gasped into his mouth, and he licked inside hers. And Jesus Christ, Ginny had to drop her shoes and fist his shirt to keep from falling over against the sheer force and desperation of his kiss. He was trying to bury himself in her, or her in him; she couldn’t be sure considering that she couldn’t really think straight when his tongue was doing wonders to hers.

No, she was wrong on both accounts. Kissing him back, touching his stubble, letting out an embarrassing whimper, Ginny knew exactly what he was doing.

She pulled back when she could no longer take it, when her lungs burned for air and a little respite. He didn’t let her go, though. His hand held the back of her head and kept her right there—forehead against forehead.

It wasn’t Boardner’s Bar behind them; it was the enormity of the Pacific Ocean. And it wasn’t two Padres players dancing on something forbidden and inappropriate. It was her and Mike, finally connected together instead of standing apart.

“Well, look at what we got here,” he muttered. Ginny bit her lip to hide her grin.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly, giving her a few short pecks before diving in for more. She found herself drowning, and the only thing keeping her afloat was his arm—the same one that had been draped across her chair earlier—wrapped securely around her so she had nowhere to go. Not without him, at least.

Ginny didn’t want to be anywhere else.

“Mike?”

He pulled back to look at her. He looked at her the same way he had been doing all night.

“Yeah.”

They still had to talk about it—really, literally talk this time. But like hell if Ginny didn’t take what she had been given and run before it slipped through her fingers again. She had relived that night of his almost trade more times than she would’ve liked. The last thing she wanted was for history to repeat itself.

“I think it’s time you take me home.”

He gave her another bruising kiss before releasing the grip on her body. Holding his hand, she bent down to scoop up her heels. And with one practically dressed to the nines while the other was barefoot with sand on the bottom of her dress, the pair walked back to their car together as if this was their hundredth date instead of their first.


End file.
